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Off the Beaten Path, History in Philadelphia

Seth Kugel for The New York TimesWinning back the Cliveden house from the British was the rebels’ objective in the bloody Battle of Germantown in 1777.

The No. 23 city bus running along the cobblestones is still known as the “trolley,”and you can take it to visit the house where a young Benjamin Franklin stopped for advice on books or to other homes where Revolutionary War battles left powder marks and bloodstains. George Washington slept here, a lot, and decades later so did runaway slaves at a well-preserved stop on the Underground Railroad. There’s also a homey lunch spot known for its veggie burger.

Historic sites in Philadelphia (and restaurants that serve veggie burgers) may not seem so notable, but visitors don’t often make it to Germantown Avenue, where the trolley runs, preferring instead to brave the crowds at Independence Hall and the National Constitution Center in Center City.

Their loss. The two-mile strip of Germantown Avenue that runs through the Germantown and Mount Airy neighborhoods makes for a great low-cost detour if you’re in town from elsewhere, or an economical day trip from as far away as Washington or New York. (If you plan well, the whole day won’t cost much more than $50 a person from Midtown Manhattan, including transportation via BoltBus.)
Take the trolley if you must ($2 a pop or $10 for a day pass) but the best way to explore the area is to stroll up or down the avenue, taking in the odd mix of well-preserved 18th-century houses, modern businesses and patches of urban decay. You can’t help but wonder what the Johnsons, 19th-century Quaker abolitionists whose property served as that Underground Railroad stop, would make of the vibrant but low-income African-American neighborhood that surrounds their house today.

During my visit to Philadelphia last week, I didn’t get to do more than peer over the fence at the Johnson House, since hours at some Germantown attractions are frustratingly limited. But I did visit three other houses, all well preserved, all fascinatingly different, all $5.

Seth Kugel for The New York TimesThe Johnson House was a stop on the Underground Railroad in the 1850s.

The quirkiest was the Wyck Historic House and Garden, an 18th-century property on land inhabited by nine generations of the same Quaker family (from a 1690s cabin to 1973, whoa). This family loved to save stuff, and the house is brimming with original furniture from across those centuries (including one piece formerly belonging to Ben Franklin), along with fascinating objects, including a bloodletting cup (used ineffectively when a family member had scarlet fever), a box of Dean’s Throat Lozenges from the Harry A. Spangler Apothecary down the block, and copies of literature from the Abolitionist movement. (Like the Johnsons, and many other Quakers, several generations of Wyck’s inhabitants were abolitionists). Outside, an 1820s rose garden maintains its original design, a rarity. I saw the first rose of the season, a white Scotch rose; things will soon be in full bloom.

A 15-minute walk down Germantown Avenue, past the Germantown Historical Association, is Grumblethorpe, home of the Wister family for several generations and named for a fictional estate in the decidedly unfamous novel “Thinks I to Myself.” It is accessible by appointment only, but I managed a same-day tour with the very knowledgeable Diana Thompson, the education director, who showed me the bloodstain from when a British general quartered in the house had come back bleeding from battle, a shield that kept heat from the fireplace from melting women’s wax makeup and a copy of a 1777 letter from John Wister to his grandchildren telling them that there was no way in heck he was going to give them any money (not his exact words).

The real star, though, was out of the way — a few blocks off the southern end of the stretch of Germantown Avenue in an oddly industrial area.

Stenton, a rare example of early 18th-century Georgian architecture in America, really has it together for visitors. Without calling in advance, I was granted a nearly instant and very polished tour with the director, Dennis S. Pickeral. (Since I travel anonymously and have no discernible charm, I can only assume that all walk-ins are treated so well.)

Stenton was built by James Logan, who came from Britain with William Penn but, unlike the colony’s founder, stayed his whole life, ending up mayor of Philadelphia and later chief justice and then acting governor of Pennsylvania. He was also a book fiend, amassing one of the largest private libraries of the time; according to Mr. Pickeral, a young Benjamin Franklin came by to seek advice on purchases for the colonies’ first public library and became a mentee of Logan.

Seth Kugel for The New York TimesThese serving pieces on display at Stenton were dug up on the property and carefully reassembled.

Logan was an impressive guy, with an equally impressive house, now full of the original furniture and set up as historians believed they were in the day — most interestingly in the combination bedroom-social areas. One fascinating table downstairs is covered with reconstructed teacups and kettles, patched together with pieces found during archaeological digs on the property.

Germantown’s most celebrated historic sites are right along the avenue. The Deshler-Morris House, also known as the Germantown White House since George Washington came as president to escape a yellow fever epidemic, then liked it so much he spent the next summer there. (It’s now run by the National Parks Service.) The other is Cliveden, the five-and-a-half-acre estate occupied by British soldiers during the Revolution and attacked by rebels in the bloody Battle of Germantown, re-enacted every year in early October. (This year’s is on Saturday, Oct. 1.)

Still, the historic spot that I liked the most was the Upper Burying Ground, next to the 1775 Concord School House. It is open only by appointment, on some Saturdays and for special events, alas. I was not there in either instance, and my camera lens barely fit through the bars of the gate as I tried to capture the ancient headstones jutting out of the earth at irregular angles under the pink blossoms of cherry trees. (There’s a better view just up stairs that lead to the schoolhouse building.)

You’ll need lunch, of course, and with tourists sparse there’s no need to comb Web sites for “where the locals go”: anywhere the locals don’t go would be out of business. A little sniffing around led me to the Maplewood Mall (that’s mall as in “sheltered walk or promenade,” not “teenager-infested chain store hellscape”) and its Flower Café at Linda’s. Tucked into the first floor of a brick row house, the vegetarian-friendly (and just generally friendly) spot is known for its $8 oat-based veggie burger, moist as can be, and its coconut-pineapple cupcakes, even moister.

Seth Kugel for The New York TimesThe Flower Café’s famous veggie burgers are served.

A more carnivorous option is the Rib Crib, a Thursday-through-Saturday-only hole in the wall near Cliveden that has some best-in-Philadelphia credentials for its namesake dish. There’s also family-run Sister Muhammad’s on the way to Stenton, forlorn looking from outside but full of friendly bickering inside (“Mom, let me handle the customers!”) and the $7 fried fish hoagie will easily feed two (especially with half a honey bean pie — $5 — to split for dessert.

If you can’t leave Philly without ingesting a cheese steak, take the trolley farther up Germantown Avenue into tony Chestnut Hill, where McNally’s Tavern serves the Schmitter, a critically acclaimed, calorie-laden cheese steak with fried salami on a kaiser roll. It’s probably best for dinner, since it will knock you out. McNally’s was founded in 1921, well after George Washington’s days, but if he downed a midday Schmitter, he probably would have slept there as well.

If You Go
For that $50 day trip from New York, reserve enough in advance and the Bolt Bus will cost $17 round trip; add $8.75 for the round trip from 30th Street Station downtown to Germantown on the Septa regional rail. The attractions are around $5 each but a “passport” to all is $15 for one, $25 for a family of four. You’ll have trouble spending much more than $10 for lunch.

Before you go, prepare. First, go to Germantown’s official Web site, and read the brochure to get the lay of the land and plan the timing of your trip — on Mondays and Wednesdays, for example, you’ll find nearly everything closed. Call ahead to make appointments for attractions without regular hours. Then, read up a bit: Ushistory.org/germantown gives a quick background and detailed descriptions of the sites up and down the avenue; print it out for an informal guidebook. Then, for a flavor of how modern day Germantown and Mount Airy interact with the past, browse through the thorough archive of articles by Temple University journalism students assigned to cover the neighborhood, like this one, an interview with a former president of the Germantown Historical Society.